World’s first honey bee vaccine seeks to save dying pollinators

A growing number of honey bees die each year due to pesticides, vanishing habitats, poor nutrition and climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences for agriculture and natural diversity.
Now, scientists at the University of Helsinki have developed the first edible vaccine against microbial infections, hoping to save at least some of the pollinators.
“We might be right now at a tipping point, without even realizing it,” Dalial Freitak, the lead scientist on the project, said in an interview on Wednesday. “We’ve been taking the pollination services for granted for so long. These insects are not there, they are disappearing.